Interesting....

So I ordered this book a couple weeks ago for a tiny discussion class (based solely on that book) that I'm going to have in the fall. I'm a bad reader and I don't like to be rushed on books because when I'm rushed I don't comprehend much. So I'm trying to get just read the thing in the summer and take notes on it now so I don't have to read it in the fall.

So I started reading the book today. In chapter 1 it referenced some map on plate 1. So I go to the table of contents to find out where plate 1 is. I flip to the appropriate section and behold: no color pages are in the book. I thought, maybe the TOC was wrong and flipped through the entire book. Turns out the book had been misprinted.

So amazon.com is having me return it and will send a new copy. The very friendly customer service person said she has no way of knowing if the whole thing has been misprinted. So if my next book has the same problem they're going to have to pull it from the amazon.com website until the publisher fixes the problem.

So I'm really hoping this one book was just a fluke. I'd really like to read the thing during the summer and I don't want to pay over $90 for a book that's missing all it's color pages.

Yay for amazon, boo for the publisher.

All skills no fame for me.

I love some of the random emails I get at grad school. Here's one from one of our administrative folks. I wouldn't have expected for this to be an issue since most people have common sense, but apparently it is.



"Please do not write on hallway posters unless you have been asked for review
& input.

Hallway posters are usually finished and sometimes travel to more than one
event.

If you have concerns about a poster (science, design, grammar), please
contact the authors.

Thank you!"

Georgia's superintendent, Kathy Cox, is. That show rocked and that woman has good reasoning skills. She's the first million dollar winner ever on the show. That is all.

Always on the back burner of my mind is the potential for assassination attempts in this presidential election. I don't think anyone is going to go after McCain, but I think there are a lot of wackos out who'd try and kill Obama.

An assassination attempt may have been thwarted today. Some guys were pulled over in a routine traffic stop and found in possession of guns and meth. There's talk about the men being white supremacists. It may have been nothing but a couple of questionable characters going shooting at a range, but it may have been a serious threat.

Does this make anyone else wary about Obama speaking in an outdoor stadium tomorrow?

I guess with any president or candidate you have to worry, but I sincerely hope that the Secret Service really really has their act together tomorrow and in the future.

I was looking for some Tlingit words today. I needed a new username on a popular game and was having trouble finding a name that wasn't taken, so I thought I'd try a Tlingit word.

Then I found this on Sealaska's webpage. They have these intereactive stories in Tlingit (with English translations). This first one cracks me up, it's about a bear. The animations are just hilarious. There's also a fish names quiz and many others here.

I’m well read on the FLDS community. I’ve read several books relating to the culture and seen even more documentaries and TV specials. I'm well aware there are a lot of issues with abuse. However, this raid really bothers me for several reasons.

1) The media keeps saying “polygamists” rather than FLDS. While the culture or polygamy no doubt contributes to a societal structure that makes for power struggles and abuse, polygamy itself isn’t the root cause of the abuse problem. I think the prevalence of abuse has a lot more to do with the insular nature of several of the FLDS cities, the power held by the community leaders and the fairly recent change in leadership following the death of Rulon Jeffs.

When Warren Jeffs began to gain power (this was in Utah/Arizona) he made very restrictive rules on dress, many women were reassigned to new husbands, and many kids were pulled out of public schools. I should note these public schools were generally filled with FLDS teachers and a few mainstream Mormon teachers. Also, the community became more devided when Warren Jeffs took over with some people following his radical teachings and others not.

2) The logic of this raid seems to be the following: Since abuse is prevalent in the FLDS community and we have recent accusations of abuse we should take temporary custody of all children in the community to determine which ones are being abused.

Well... by that logic you could do the same thing in Alaska. Since domestic violence is so common here, especially in rural villages, why not just lock up all the kids from some small town like Shishmaref?

But, in regular society that’s not what we do. We investigate allegations of abuse on a case-by-case basis. Yes, it’s harder to do in the FLDS community because the community is so insular.

The last raid on the community (which occurred in Utah/Arizona) only served to reinforce the teaching of the church and its leaders. It made the community fear outsiders even more. Undoubtedly, some children will be returned to their families and community because there is a lack of evidence proving abuse. What will they remember of the outside world? They will remember that we tried to break up their families.

3) I have doubts that this 16 year old girl is even real. It seems more like something a concerned outsider would do.

4) In Carolyn Jessop’s book Escape, she notes several cases of abuse at the hand of mothers. Numerous mothers are allowed to be with the children. However, mothers are responsible for much of the abuse in the FLDS community. It's not uncommon for one wife to harm another's kids or even her own. So, if kids are to speak out against their families they need to be separated from their mothers and father. If the government is willing to go to this extreme to determine where abuse is occurring they need to do it right.

There's got to be some kind of etiquette for friend requests on facebook.

I may have mentioned this before, but I can't be sure. There's this dude that used to have a crush on me back in high school. He's a bit slow and a pretty awkward too. Have I seen him since my sophomore year of high school (1999-2000)? No. Have I spoken to him since then? No.

I rejected his first facebook friend request because when this guy did have a crush on me he was hard to shake. The guy isn't very bright and a lot of people weren't nice to him back in school. I was nice to him, but perhaps too nice in the way in which I declined invitations to hang out etc. He didn't get that I didn't want to be friends or his girlfriend or whatever. I don't want that to happen again.

Now I'm up to like my fourth or fifth facebook friend request from him. I keep declining them, but he just doesn't get it. I did't want to write him a note either... Ugh. I blocked him (so he can't see that I exist on facebook anymore) and feel shitty for doing it. But what else am I supposed to do?

I'd love access to one of those plagarism checking services right now.

I just wrote a 3000+ word paper for my fish ecology class. It's supposed to fit the style of a particular journal and be clear and concise. Anyway, I've gone back and forth over my sentences so much without referring to my references in a while that I fear some of them may be close to their origional sources.

I cited 15 papers (including a 350 page environmental impact statement and it's 200-something page suppliment) and read even more that I didn't use. After doing that, I'm starting to wonder how people in science keep it all straight and don't wind up lifting a sentence or two on accident.

Romney endorsed McCain. So, I'm thinking my earlier hypothesis that Romney will be McCain's VP choice may be coming true. I guess I'll know in time.

After I got home today I was able to see Romney's speech. He seemed pretty happy. He mentioned several ways in which he agrees with McCain (and several ways he doesn't).

McCain is deemed far to liberal by much of the GOP.

So... I've got it figured out. Romney is only dropping out because he and McCain have already agreed to run together. McCain needs a strong conservative. Huckabee isn't a realistic choice because he's a bit too evangelical for the moderates. Thompson is old, just like McCain. Paul ran as a third party candidate before and it only running as a republican this time for viability. Gualiani is in the same niche as McCain in many ways. Everyone else is unknown.

I think we have the nation's republican ticket: McCain/Romney in '08.

Obama's decision to actually put a campaign office in Alaska paid off. He's winning Alaska with 75% of the vote. That's with 95% reporting.


CNN is calling Alaska for Romney (Huckabee in second). I thought Ron Paul might do well here due to the number of ads he ran (he ran a lot, I never saw other ads). But, I forgot that Romney's son came here to campaign for him. Looks like about 45% of the vote here went to Romney.

Edit: Apparently Romney dropped out. I'm sort of surprised that he dropped out before Huckabee since he has more delegates at present. My personal opinion is that if McCain gets the nomination, the democrats will face a bigger challenge in the nationals than if Huckabee gets the nomination. Some analysts I've heard say that both Romney and Huckabee would lose to Clinton or Obama, but that McCain vs. Clinton could go either way. So, I think this development is interesting.

That was an amazing game. Wow. I hoped the Giants would win since I'm basically an anti-fan of the Patriots. I didn't actually expect it to happen. That last quarter was amazing. I also loved that the game was so low-scoring. Props to the defense of both teams.

In terms of commercials my favorite was the FedEx commercial with the giant birds. My second favorite was the Budweiser commercial with the horse trying to make the team who had the dog helping out.

... that our front door froze shut.

Yup yup. I got to pick through the space in the door and chip ice out so that I could leave yesterday. That was pretty funny.

My advisor and I have a philosophical difference on a problem and I'm 99% sure I'm right and he's wrong. The entire class did the problem the same way I did and he's trying to tell us we're wrong. I'm so going to find an outside source on this one.

It's a relatedness problem. It shouldn't be too hard.

Gusts to 65mph. Sustained winds about 35 My power keeps flickering. Hopefully the power stays on so I can get my report done and other midterm started.

I also hope that the Red Sox win this game (that I can't watch).

I'm not sure why, but I have several ideas..... Two word files and one excel file I worked on at a work computer will not open on my home computer. Anyway, I'm pissed off because it's going to eat up some of my time tomorrow. All three files are for homework.

Yup. We're going to buy it. We negotiated to a price we're happy with. Now we need to arrange for insurance and what not. We'll be finalizing it on Tuesday hopefully.

Sweetness.

My apartment is so humid following my boyfriend's use or the clothes dryer that my calendar's pages have curled.

That is all.

Someone went postal and shot something like 50 people at Virgina Tech today. Half of them are already dead. I'll never understand some things.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd-shooting.html?ex=1334462400&en=7c0325e5b35a7c45&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink